Enthusiasts of creationism on the fringes of the American evangelical movement now have the strangest new allies - in a nation that made atheism its state religion.

Yes, creationism has now reared its ugly and evolving head in Russia, the heart of the "Godless communism" that prevailed in the Soviet Union.

And, as pointed out in a superb blog by Michael Zimmerman in the Huffington Post, the Russian rhetoric sounds strangely familiar.

After giving a lecture last week in Moscow, Hilarion Alfeyev, Archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, was reported by Reuters saying:

"The time has come for the monopoly of Darwinism and the deceptive idea that science in general contradicts religion. These ideas should be left in the past... Darwin's theory remains a theory. This means it should be taught to children as one of several theories, but children should know of other theories too."

This is a pretty clear inference that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in school. American creationists could have written the script for him, as they've been pushing the same tactic now for years under different guises, most recently as intelligent design.

The fightback has already begun, and the Reuters item reports Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a veteran Russian dissident, as saying that Russian liberals would fight all attempts to introduce religious teaching into classrooms, especially science. She says: "It's a dangerous idea and we will do all we can to stop it. We overcame communism as the state ideology and certain forces want to replace it with Orthodox Christianity."

Orthodox Christianity is, however, Russia's dominant religion, and services are attended by the country's leaders, prime minister Vladimir Putin and president Dmitry Medvedev.

With pressure from evangelicals for the US to abandon the division between church and state insisted upon by Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers, and the growing influence of the Orthodox church within Russia, we could see an unlikely alliance forged between former enemies. Jefferson and Lenin would be spinning in their tombs.

It just dawned on me this evening. Modern humans are nearly biologically identical to the earliest humans. Evolution takes too long for any significant changes to have occurred over the last 100,000 years.

But somehow, these early humans, who did not even have a spoken language, much less a written one, possessed brains which with almost no evolutionary change, would be capable of developing not only spoken and written language, but all of modern science.

How does a mutation create a 100,000 year leap in a species, in a way which that trait will not even be start to be exploited for 90,000 years?

The Soviet Union actually rejected the teaching of evolution. One of those myths that Communists and Nazis were evolutionists. The former was a proponent of some oddball theory, the latter pushed Thulistic occult beliefs of a creation of different classes of people.

How on earth can one compare such polar opposites as Jefferson, lover of liberty, with a murderous totalitarian dictator like Lenin, whose first acts were to shut down freedom of the press, freedom of education, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, institute one-party rule, and start murdering everyone who opposed him?

Also, no mainline creationist or ID organization has ever advocating banning Darwin in school. On the other hand, I know of lots of Darwinists who would want to ban the teaching of creationism or ID.

In fact, ICR and some ID organizations have stated clearly that they want to teach more Darwin than the Darwinists allow the schools to teach. One reason is to include both the strengths and weaknesses of the theory, but another is the reality that students cannot understand the 20th century without an understanding of Darwinism. The only dogmatists who want to teach one side are the DODO’s (Darwin-only, Darwin-only).

How on earth can one compare such polar opposites as Jefferson, lover of liberty, with a murderous totalitarian dictator like Lenin, whose first acts were to shut down freedom of the press, freedom of education, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, institute one-party rule, and start murdering everyone who opposed him?

Also, no mainline creationist or ID organization has ever advocating banning Darwin in school. On the other hand, I know of lots of Darwinists who would want to ban the teaching of creationism or ID.

In fact, ICR and some ID organizations have stated clearly that they want to teach more Darwin than the Darwinists allow the schools to teach. One reason is to include both the strengths and weaknesses of the theory, but another is the reality that students cannot understand the 20th century without an understanding of Darwinism. The only dogmatists who want to teach one side are the DODOs (Darwin-only, Darwin-only).

I agree with you 100%. Real science can address opposition with facts and experiment. Only ideology masquerading as “science” demands a clear field with no objections. “Global warming,” anyone? “Overpopulation”?

10
posted on 06/16/2010 8:10:24 PM PDT
by Tax-chick
(A cat may look at a queen.)

>>Also, no mainline creationist or ID organization has ever advocating banning Darwin in school. On the other hand, I know of lots of Darwinists who would want to ban the teaching of creationism or ID.<<

You, of course, would be incorrect in this statement. The only request the scientific community asks is that ID and Creationism be taught as philosophy and/or theology.

One can no more teach ID as science than one can teach astrology as astronomy or alchemy as chemistry.

16
posted on 06/16/2010 8:24:43 PM PDT
by freedumb2003
(The frog who accepts a ride from a scorpion should expect a sting and the phrase "it is my nature.")

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